Priority Pass is adding the Virgin Atlantic’s Clubhouse in San Francisco (SFO), Delta and Lyft have a holiday promotion, American Airlines extends the MAX cancelations to April, and Venmo and PNC Bank are in a battle.
Priority Pass Adds Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at SFO
Priority Pass added the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at San Francisco Airport for the limited hours of 6:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. starting December 16, 2019.
The lounge is located in the International Terminal in Concourse A on the 5th Level. The lounge has a shower, and an extensive food and drink menu, and cocktail menu.
The lounge also has good reviews on both TripAdvisor and Yelp.
Virgin Atlantic flights depart San Francisco for London-Heathrow at 5:00 p.m., and 9:25 p.m., so allowing Priority Pass access allows Virgin to make ancillary revenue on the off-peak lounge times similar to Virgin Atlantic’s lounge at Newark and Washington Dulles.
We have added the lounge to our Airport Lounge Map below, which you can save to your Google Maps mobile app.
(It takes a few seconds to load from Google).
Travel News
- American Airlines extended 737-MAX cancellations until April 7, 2020.
- Air Canada is launching a Montreal to Nashville route starting on June 1, 2020, operated daily by a Embraer E175.
- Sun Country Airlines added a twice weekly summer route between Minneapolis and Vancouver starting May 20, 2020.
Deals and Points News
- Marriott updated Bonvoy’s terms and conditions to include “Select properties may have redemption rates in excess of the Category 8 Redemption Rates.” This update was in response to Marriott adding North Island in the Seychelles, which has an average room price of $8,000 per night. [Loyalty Lobby]
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American Airlines is currently locking down or shutting down AAdvantage accounts for using targeted Citi credit card mailers.
- Delta and Lyft are running a holiday promotion where you can earn 10 Delta SkyMiles per $1 on airport rides and 2 SkyMiles per dollar on all other rides through January 2, 2020, when you link your accounts
In Other News
- Article: Venmo Glitch Opens Window on War Between Banks, Fintech Firms.
- Venmo uses a company called Plaid to connect Venmo to thousands of other financial institutions.
- PNC updated their security, which prevented Plaid from accessing customer information to complete Venmo transactions using PNC accounts.
- PNC wants customers to instead use Zelle, which was created by several large banking institutions.
- PNC cites security concerns for their move to limit fintech firms like Venmo and Plaid’s access to customer data.
- However, you can still use Venmo with PNC if you manually input your routing and account number, which takes a few days to verify.
- The Heisman trophy winner is announced tonight. The heavy favorite is LSU’s Joe Burrow.
Flight Deals
- Flight Deal #1– Frankfurt (FRA) in the $400s and $500s.
- From: Boston ($484), Chicago ($434), Fort Lauderdale ($341), Los Angeles (LAX; $520), New York (JFK; $426), Orlando ($426), San Francisco ($477), and Washington D.C. (IAD; $494)
- Months: January to June and September to November.
- Flight Deal #2: Paris (CDG and ORY) in the $200s
- From: Boston ($289), Chicago-ORD ($291), New York-JFK ($275), New York-LGA ($284), and Newark ($281).
- Months: Varies by starting city, but generally January to May and August to November.
- Airlines: Air Canada, American, British Airways, Iberia, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, and United.
